


Brains Over Brawn, Any Day

by supernovainparadise



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV), iZombie (TV)
Genre: ... sorta, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Boss/Employee Relationship, Braaiiiins, Crossover, Dark Comedy, Episode: s03e20-21 Lo-Fi & Mayhem, Fluff and Humor, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Hot sauce, M/M, Minor Character Death, Slow Burn, Spencer Reid Needs a Hug, Temporary Character Death, This WHOLE THING is dark humor, Unfortunatley, Yes it deserves it's own tag for this one, You have to see both shows to understand a lot of this, Zombie!Spencer, but also angst, changes POV, literally!, this is NOT sponsored by Mike's Hot Honey
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:26:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27885226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supernovainparadise/pseuds/supernovainparadise
Summary: When the SUV explodes in a brilliant shower of glass, twisted metal, fire, and blood, Spencer Reid is technically DOA. He dies, he gets punctured in the stomach with a large piece of metal and hits his head on the sidewalk, and bleeds out before Hotch can even try to fix it.Only, he wakes up right as Derek Morgan arrives on scene, and everything the BAU thought they knew about life and death is thrown out the window.And one more thing; he has an insatiable craving for human brains.
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner/Spencer Reid, Derek Morgan & Spencer Reid, Emily Prentiss & Spencer Reid, Jennifer "JJ" Jareau & Spencer Reid, Penelope Garcia & Spencer Reid, Spencer Reid & David Rossi, William LaMontagne Jr. & Spencer Reid
Comments: 7
Kudos: 35





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> If you have not seen iZombie, I'd highly recommend it. It's only a few seasons, but it's hilarious and full of dark humor, with fun Hannibal-style cooking scenes to boot. It's currently on Netflix! That being said, you can technically read this by itself, but it's easier to understand with the knowledge of the series.

All Aaron Hotchner can hear is ringing. A vibration that rings so deep in his skull that he will never be able to get it out. All he can feel is the blood dripping from his ears, down his arms and face. All he can see is the screen in front of him, a wreath of fire surrounding him from the burning SUV. All he can smell is burnt metal and gasoline, and all he can taste is the rich copper of his own blood. He turns slowly and represses a scream he knows he won't hear. The SUV is in blazes, and out of the corner of his eyes, he can see two bodies lying in two different spots. One is curled into the fetal position on the sidewalk, and the other is laying on their back in the middle of the road.

The body in the road moves and Hotch stumbles towards it, landing on his knees next to Kate Joyner. She's alive, conscious, and she's saying something, but Hotch can only hear the ringing in his ears, the tinnitus blocking all sound. She mouths the word again, and Hotch's brow furrows. The third time she says it, he pays attention to her lips and is able to finally make it out: _Reid_. He feels icy panic grab his stomach, and for the moment leaves Kate and stands, limping over to the other figure on the sidewalk. He drops to his knees beside him, and carefully rolls him onto his back.

Hotch thinks his heart stops.

Lodged deep in Spencer's abdomen is a large piece of shrapnel, and his eyes are glassy, staring. The tinnitus retreats and Hotch can hear an alarm from one of the nearby stores, and tears roll freely down his face, his shoulders shaking as he looks down at the youngest member of his team, Spencer's corpse sprawled out on the ground in a pool of blood. Aaron hears footsteps behind him, and a male voice quietly whispers, "oh my god."

He glances over his shoulder to see a man, no older than the corpse resting in his arms, standing over him with a horrified expression. Aaron quickly orders him to go look after Kate, the words somehow making it through his choked voice, and he nods and runs towards her. Aaron sits there for another minute before he gently rests Spencer on the ground, and closes his eyes before sprinting across the road to join the boy near Kate. There's nothing he can do for the young agent now, he tells himself, pushing through the shock settling over his entire system.

There's nothing he can do.

He learns the boy's name is Sam, and Sam stays with him and Kate even as the ambulances and police cars line up at a barricade down the road. He feels helpless; he can't risk lifting Kate off the ground without her losing any more blood, and he feels like he glances over his shoulder at Spencer's corpse at least once every few minutes, guilt and anger and grief filling him every time he sees him. Why did it have to be Spencer who died? Spencer, brilliant and small and still so painfully young. Barely 27, who'd seen so fucking much for those few years of life.

When Derek shows up, looking panicked and frazzled, Aaron almost cries again when the other agent tells him that the others are okay, safe back at HQ. Aaron is trying to find the bloodline to block off again when the sound of coughing hits his ears. Panicked he looks down at Kate, who looks back up at him. She's still breathing heavily, but not coughing. He, Derek, and Sam all exchange shocked looks, and then slowly, Aaron turns his head towards Spencer.

And he's sitting up, hand clutched around his stomach, coughing and hunched over. Derek's jaw falls open, and he sprints over to his friend. Aaron can't quite hear their quiet conversation, and he sees Derek wrap an arm around Spencer's shoulders, confusion written all over his face. Aaron tells Sam to get behind the barricades, and he nods, standing and jogging towards the people on the other side. Aaron looks back towards Derek, who looks incredibly panicked, and he can't blame him. What the hell are you supposed to do when someone who was lying dead in your arms no less than twenty minutes ago is now sitting up, alive and breathing?

Morgan's phone goes off, and he picks it up, his face changing from one of panic to shock to anger. He hangs up and says something to Spencer, who nods, then helps him lay back down before running back over to Hotch.

"The kid is our unsub," Morgan says, and Hotch gestures for him to go.

* * *

He still loses Kate, after all is said and done. But Spencer is alive, and the doctors cannot figure out how and why. He's sewn up, and by the next morning sent out with a clean bill of health to the shock of everyone on the team.

"Seriously, pretty boy, I'm pretty fucking sure you were dead. _Again_." Morgan tells him as the group files into the diner, taking up the corner booth and trying to mask their exhaustion.

Aaron can't help but think that Spencer looks particularly exhausted, dark circles under his eyes and skin almost white. He can't blame him though, after what they've been through. But, to Reid's credit, he gives Morgan a soft smile.

"Me too. But hey, most of us made it out. We have that to be thankful for, and beyond that, I'm _starving_ ," Spencer says, and the group chuckles, Emily passing around menus. They go about two minutes before Spencer says, "did you know that adrenaline can burn over 50 calories per hour?"

Everyone rolls their eyes a bit, but most of them spend the meal indulging Spencer's ramblings, simply glad that the young agent is alive and well. That being said, starving seems to be an understatement, because by the end of the meal, Spencer has finished off a stack of pancakes, a basket of fries, a burger, a piece of toast, and a chocolate shake. Aaron doesn't think he's ever seen him eat so much, and it seems like he might still be hungry because he snags the rest of Rossi's shake when the man offers it to him. Hotch chalks it up to the long day and stressful night, but as they get into one of the remaining SUVs, he catches a puzzled look on Dr. Reid's face.


	2. Chapter 2

**Reid: _"Shun death, is my advice."_ Robert Brown**

Spencer shook the bottle of Mike's Hot Honey one last time, eyeing is sadly before ultimately chucking the empty container in the trash and slapping the top piece of bread on his sandwich before walking back to his desk, the sound of Derek and Emily arguing (again), reaching his ears. He ignored them, sitting at his desk and opening a set of files on his computer, and taking a large bite out of his sandwich.

Tasteless, without his hot sauce.

Derek throws his arms up and turns towards Spencer. "Reid, tell Emily I'm right."

"Reid, do not tell Emily he's right," Prentiss shoots back, and Spencer sighs, swallowing hard and relishing the feeling of the food settling in his stomach. It had been too long since he'd eaten last.

He looks up between the two agents, both eagerly awaiting his answer, and sighs again. "Neither of you is technically correct; extreme OCD _can_ cause someone to murder, but it must be paired with another or several other disorders."

"So in a way... I'm right?" Derek says, and Spencer merely shakes his head as Emily bristles, before taking another bite of his sandwich and starting on his paperwork.

The hours pass by quickly, and before he knows it, everyone but him has cleared out of the office and Hotch is tapping his shoulder with a raised eyebrow.

"You need to get some rest," Aaron says, voice quiet despite it being only the two of them.

Spencer turns off his computer and stands, brushing a lock of white-blond hair out of his face. He gathers his things and turns to see Aaron still standing there, looking at him with an odd expression on his face. Spencer quirks an eyebrow at him, and Hotch shifts slightly, before breathing out heavily through his nose.

"Are you... doing okay, Reid?" Aaron asks, and Spencer realizes what the expression is; worry.

"I've... been better, I suppose," Spencer admits, shifting his messenger bag on his hip. "Getting punctured by a massive piece of shrapnel doesn't have the best effects on human physiology."

"I understand that, but that's not really what I meant," Aaron says, and Spencer swallows hard. "You've been staying later at the office, but also coming in later. And you seem to spend a lot of your free time at the ME's, or the morgue, rather than the library or at your home. Is there something going on that I should know about?"

Spencer stares at him, and thinks, _yeah, there's something going on alright..._

But how does he explain to his boss that he's turned into a zombie?

Ever since that night after the terrorist attack, Spencer's world has been flipped upside down. He spent over a week absolutely starving, unable to feel full no matter how much food he shoved down his throat. And the hungrier he got, the less in control he felt before it was all he could think about. It became a real problem when he was sitting at his desk, staring at Morgan across the room, and felt a sudden sick and sharp urge to crack his skull open like an oyster and eat his brain. He had sprinted out of the BAU as fast as his legs could take him, and before he knew it, he ended up at the morgue in the basement of the building. And there, sitting on a table with no one guarding it, was a human brain. He couldn't stop himself, and when he turned around, the entire frontal lobe was gone down his throat.

But for the first time, he wasn't hungry anymore.

Then, on top of the brain-eating thing, his hair had turned white. When the others asked, he offered the first thing he could think of; Marie Antoinette Syndrom, brought on by extreme stress. The team, thankfully, bought it fairly easily. The pale skin wasn't a worry, and neither were the dark circles; most of them knew that Spencer didn't exactly have the best sleeping schedule.

But instead of telling his boss all of this, Spencer simply offers a tight smile, and says, "no, sir."

Aaron gives him that worried look again but backs off, and the two walk quietly out of the building together, before separating, Spencer heading for the metro station, and Aaron towards his car.


	3. Chapter 3

Spencer is, to her slight surprise, not at all shocked when Penelope Garcia is the first one to figure it all out.

Penelope might not be a profiler like the rest of them, but Spencer has noticed that she tends to think in a way that the others don't. She doesn't look at psychology or criminal records to figure things out. Instead, she looks at changes in habit, like dressing differently, or acting differently, or eating differently. Hint: it's the eating differently that clues her into the weird stuff surrounding Spencer. Specifically, it's the sudden introduction of Mike's Hot Honey to nearly everything he eats. And it's not like the good doctor doesn't eat spicy food, or avoid it really, it's just not a super consistent part of his diet. He would order spicy food at a restaurant that offered food meant to be spicy, but now it seemed like he added some sort of hot sauce (OK, maybe it was just Mike's Hot Honey, but Penelope couldn't fault him for that, it was so dang good!) to every single thing he ate.

Like he was adding to his salad. In copious amounts.

Seriously?

Penelope reached over and gently plucked the bottle from his hands. Spencer shot her a slightly offended look, but Penelope clicked her tongue and said, "I think you'll light your teeth on fire with any more of this, 187."

Spencer merely looks at her, completely deadpan, and says, "maybe that's my goal." He picks up his salad, and Penelope tries not to make a face, because who puts ground beef and spicy honey on a salad? Instead, she ignores Reid's unusual lunch choice and grabs her tuna salad sandwich, which is perfectly normal, from the fridge and retreating back to her cave.

The next thing she notices that begins to bother her is the hair.

It started going blond, like blond-blond, after the terrorist attack and his brush with death in NYC. He explains it away easily, as Marie Antoinette syndrome. Most of the team accepts his explanation of the syndrome with relative ease, and the history lesson he gives in attachment to this is actually pretty interesting and engaging for once. Penelope lets it stand for about two weeks, by which time Reid's hair is completely white, and then she googles it. And, lo and behold, there's not actually any research of this syndrome and only a few handfuls of historical accounts. The closest thing she can find, in fact, is alopecia areata, which generally makes one's hair fall out. But weeks have passed, and Reid's hair is just as long and soft and luscious as it's always been.

She initially chalks it up to him dying it, but a nagging thought lingers in the back of her brain; why would Reid lie about changing his hair? And even if it did, surely his roots would have started to grow out by now? It's not like dying your hair isn't allowed in the FBI, she's done it herself plenty of times. 

Then there's his skin; he's pastier than usual and has dark circles under his eyes, but even Penelope easily sets that one aside as his usual sleep deprivation. Poor Boy Genius just doesn't get enough sleep!

But, outside of all of this, is his unusually frequent trips down to the morgue in the basement, a place Penelope avoids like the plague. That one stumps her so much that she actually asks Spencer about it, concerned and confused and a teeny bit grossed out. Spencer smiles brilliantly, and tells her, "I'm trying to get my medical license; on top of online classes, it's nice to actually get to examine a human body up close." He then tells her he's heading out for lunch and vanishes around the corner.

Penelope stares off of him, trying to keep her jaw off the floor. The first conclusion she comes to in all of this is that Spencer Reid is secretly a vampire. Pale skin, unusual diet, spending time around corpses? Definitely a vampire. The logical part of her brain tells her that she's being ridiculous and that everything so far has had a perfectly normal explanation and that she's pretty much just looking for something unusual because that's what she wants to look for.

That being said, she throws vampire out the window after Reid makes a joke at the round table when it's been revealed that their latest Unsub has been stealing brains from his victim.

"Could be a zombie," Reid says, and nearly everyone around him rolls their eyes. "I mean, if I were a zombie, I think I'd have more than enough brains!" Derek reaches over and smacks him upside the head, and Penelope reevaluates her vampire theory into a zombie theory, instead.

It's a few days after the incident when Penelope corners Reid in the parking lot and blurts out, "you're a zombie, aren't you?"

Which is definitely not what she meant to say.

But to her absolute shock and surprise, Reid doesn't deny it. He doesn't laugh at her, or roll his eyes, or rattle off some statistic on the impossibility of such a thing happening. Instead, he stares at her, jaw slack, for a long moment before sighing and shifting on his feet, rubbing the back of his head before saying, "why don't we head to your place and hang out for a little while?"

* * *

Once there, Spencer tells her... everything. From getting killed in the explosion, to waking up afterward, to his hair changing color and his insatiable hunger, to his discovery that it could be satisfied with brains, and even explains the hot sauce thing.

"I can't taste anything unless it's incredibly spicy," he explains, looking put out. "I can taste some sweetness, though. So... I suppose I'll take what I can get."

Penelope rests a gentle hand on his shoulder and offers him a smile before giggling. "Never, in a million years, would I imagine that we would be in my apartment while you tell me what it's like to be an actual zombie."

Spencer laughs, the sound pleasantly raspy, but it dies quickly and his face melts into a frown. "But the problem is... I have no idea how it happened. How I became... infected, I suppose, and the coroner is just as lost as I am. We've spent weeks trying to figure it out, but neither of us can get an answer. She is working on a cure, but I don't know if there really is one."

Penelope doesn't' hesitate to pull Spencer into a tight hug. "We'll figure this out, Boy Wonder. I promise."


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No One:
> 
> Absolutely No One:
> 
> Not a single fucking person:
> 
> Me: *poorly photoshops Spencer Reid to look like a zombie*


End file.
